The conclusion ceremony of ‘EMPOWER’, the island-wide provincial Journalist training initiative jointly conducted by the Ministry of Mass Media and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was held under the patronage of Minister of Mass Media Dr. Bandula Gunawardhana in Colombo recently.
The series of island-wide Workshops designed to emphasise the fundamental Ethics and Values in the Media was launched with a two-day programme held in Colombo in August 2023. It was supported by the UN PeaceBuilding Fund
Addressing the event, the Minister appreciated the UNDP for implementing this programme in Sri Lanka, targeting provincial Journalists regardless of their race or their based locations.
He said that Journalists have a great responsibility to report the truth to society in a fair, balanced, analysed and discriminative manner. Such reporting is essential for maintaining a non-violent society.
Workshops of this nature play a key role in training the Journalists to maintain a healthy Media culture in the country, while healing the people of this society through their reporting, the Minister pointed out.
According to the UNDP Sri Lanka, they had reached a total of 350 Journalists at the provincial level over the course of this programme.
